We investigate the impacts of access to piped water on drinking water quality, sanitation, hygiene and health outcomes in marginalized rural households of north-western Bangladesh, using a quasi-experimental setup. A government organization – the Barindra Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA) – established a piped water network to connect rural households with the deep ground water resources and improve their access to potable water. Using propensity score matching, the study compares a treatment and a control group of households to identify gains in water-sanitation, hygiene and health outcomes. In terms of water safety, we find no improvement in the quality of drinking water, measured by E. coli count per 100 ml of water at the point of use (i.e. the pots and jars used to store it). Food utensils tested positive for E. coli in both the control and treatment group, thus showing no improvement through the BMDA intervention. Hygiene behavior such as handwashing with soap after defecation or before feeding children also does not improve. Finally, we do not find evidence of health benefits, such as decreased diarrhea incidence of under-five children or improved nutritional outcomes such as stunting, underweight and wasting. Although access to BMDA piped water in the premises is subject to a fee, it seems this incentive mechanism is not strong enough to improve water behavior or its outcomes: treated households are as poor as the non-treated in terms of maintaining hygiene and water quality, possibly because of lack of information.

World hunger, according to the 2012 Global Hunger Index (GHI), has declined somewhat since 1990 but remains “serious.” The global average masks dramatic differences among regions and countries. Regionally, the highest GHI scores are in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. South Asia reduced its GHI score significantly between 1990 and 1996—mainly by reducing the share of underweight children— but could not maintain this rapid progress. Though Sub-Saharan Africa made less progress than South Asia in the 1990s, it has caught up since the turn of the millennium, with its 2012 GHI score falling below that of South Asia. From the 1990 GHI to the 2012 GHI, 15 countries reduced their scores by 50 percent or more. In terms of absolute progress, between the 1990 GHI and the 2012 GHI, Angola, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nicaragua, Niger, and Vietnam saw the largest improvements in their scores. Twenty countries still have levels of hunger that are “extremely alarming” or “alarming.” Most of the countries with alarming GHI scores are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (the 2012 GHI does not, however, reflect the recent crisis in the Horn of Africa, which intensified in 2011, or the uncertain food situation in the Sahel). Two of the three countries with extremely alarming 2012 GHI scores—Burundi and Eritrea—are in Sub-Saharan Africa; the third country with an extremely alarming score is Haiti. Its GHI score fell by about one quarter from 1990 to 2001, but most of this improvement was reversed in subsequent years. The devastating January 2010 earthquake, although not yet fully captured by the 2012 GHI because of insufficient availability of recent data, pushed Haiti back into the category of “extremely alarming.” In contrast to recent years, the Democratic Republic of Congo is not listed as “extremely alarming,” because insufficient data are available to calculate the country’s GHI score. Current and reliable data are urgently needed to appraise the situation in the country. | Non-PR | IFPRI2; GRP24 | COM; MTID; DGO; EPTD; PHND; WCAO

De acuerdo con el Índice Global del Hambre (GHI, por sus siglas en inglés) de 2012, el hambre a nivel mundial ha disminuido algo desde 1990 pero continúa siendo “serio”. El promedio global enmascara diferencias dramáticas entre regiones y países. A nivel regional, los mayores puntajes del GHI se encuentran en Asia meridional y en el África Subsahariana. Asia meridional redujo sus puntajes de GHI de forma significativa entre 1990 y 1996 —principalmente a través de una reducción en la proporción de niños con bajo peso— pero no pudo mantener este rápido progreso. Y aunque el África Subsahariana progresó menos que Asia meridional en la década de 1990, ha logrado reducir la brecha a partir del nuevo milenio, con un puntaje del GHI en 2012 apenas por debajo del obtenido por Asia meridional. | Non-PR | IFPRI2; GRP24 | COM; MTID; DGO; EPTD; PHND; WCAO

Book | COM; MTID; DGO; EPTD; PHND; WCAO | De acuerdo con el Índice Global del Hambre (GHI, por sus siglas en inglés) de 2012, el hambre a nivel mundial ha disminuido algo desde 1990 pero continúa siendo “serio”. El promedio global enmascara diferencias dramáticas entre regiones y países. A nivel regional, los mayores puntajes del GHI se encuentran en Asia meridional y en el África Subsahariana. Asia meridional redujo sus puntajes de GHI de forma significativa entre 1990 y 1996 —principalmente a través de una reducción en la proporción de niños con bajo peso— pero no pudo mantener este rápido progreso. Y aunque el África Subsahariana progresó menos que Asia meridional en la década de 1990, ha logrado reducir la brecha a partir del nuevo milenio, con un puntaje del GHI en 2012 apenas por debajo del obtenido por Asia meridional. | IFPRI2; GRP24 | Non-PR